A Father's Duty
by BetterThanCoffee
Summary: Having left his children for two years to help with the war effort, Hakoda felt like he gave up his right to be a father.


It had been two long years since Hakoda had last seen his little girl. Hakoda had to keep reminding himself of the time had past, lest he get swept up in the chaos of the war. If you had asked the chief how long it had been since he had seen the shores of the South Pole, he would have answered with a lifetime.

War did a funny thing to time. Minutes ticked by like hours, and hours felt like days. Days were months, and months were inconceivable in the scheme of a warrior. When he wasn't engaged in active battle with the Fire Nation, he was bringing supplies to the Earth Kingdom, or transporting refugees, or setting traps, or creating battle plans, or something else on the numerous lists of tasks he had to accomplish before he could feel confident enough in the safety of his family to return.

Yet, with all the time that had passed, Hakoda felt like he had already lost his kin. The slope of Sokka's nose and the quirk of Katara's smile began to slip from his memory. He couldn't remember the smell of Katara's hair, or the right note of Sokka's giggle. When he had left, Sokka's voice was still cracking and Katara looked far younger than her nearing adolescence would indicate. What was the possibility they would look the same when he returned? How could he expect them to be the same people, when he himself, was a different person?

Children, especially those on the cusp of adulthood, seem to grow shockingly fast. He remembered his own mother used to jest that she would stack ice blocks on his head until he would stop shooting up during his own childhood. Just the thought of how much growing his children could have gone through in his absence left a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. The transformations the two actually went through was far worse than Hakoda ever feared.

Hakoda did not feel right leaving Bato behind when he was injured in battle, but he had to get the rest of his fleet to safety. Bato reassured Hakoda that it was the right choice, and while he was resting, he would try to gather information. Once Bato had finished healing after their run-in with the Fire Nation, thanks to the sisters at the Abbey in the Earth Kingdom, he had returned to the fleet, bringing, surprisingly, news of Sokka and Katara. Hakoda had no idea his children had even left the Southern Water Tribe, but when he learned they were traveling with the avatar, he had to sit down.

"How did they look?" Hakoda finally croaked out.

"Big. Sokka is a strapping young man, and I would dare to say there isn't a woman in the entire tribe who could hold a candle to Katara's beauty."

Hakoda ran his calloused hand through his thick hair, his fingers getting caught in his wolf tail. That wasn't the answer he was looking for from Bato. He wanted Bato to tell him that they were still small. That they were still the same children he knew and loved. What he really wanted was for Bato to tell him that he was mistaken; they weren't his children, just some convincing mimics.

Hakoda kept telling himself that maybe Bato was just telling him what he thought Hakoda wanted to hear. The lies he spun in his own mind went round and round for months, until he had fully convinced himself that Bato did not really see his children. The two of them were still back home, at the Southern Water Tribe, safe and sound with their Gran-Gran. His kids couldn't be involved in an adult's war, they were just children.

These lies were shattered when Sokka walked into the tent he had set up as a war room on a beach near Ba Sing Se. When Sokka's arms wound around his father, his face did not bustle itself into his chest as it used to, instead, Sokka's head tucked right into Hakoda's shoulder. Hakoda bowed his head, the prickly side of his son's shaved head tickling his cheek, and tried to ignore his own tears.

"Have you thought about adding on to this?" Sokka speculated later while Hakoda was showing off his stink-and-sink bombs, meant to keep the Earth Kingdom safe from the Fire Nation.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Sokka continued, "if you put a pressure sensitive explosive under the cap, you could further debilitate the Fire Navy when they run into these bombs. Not only would they not be able to get any further, but their ships would also be damaged. They would be further delayed by having to seek repairs."

Hakoda stared at his son, his mouth agape. "Son, doesn't that seem a little violent?"

"I have seen first-hand what the Fire Nation can do. They hurt people. They kill and take away the ones you love. I think it is going to take a bit more than seaweed bombs to bring them down."

Something had changed Sokka. There was a deep sense of sadness within Sokka, a sadness that could only be attributed to loss. Something had happened to Sokka while he was away. Hakoda might have been absent from parenting for the last two years, but he was still a father. He could tell when his children were hurt. Right at that moment, Hakoda swore he would sit down and talk to Sokka extensively about the events that occurred in the past two, particularly those that involved the avatar.

Before that conversation ever had time to organically weave their way into conversation, Aang settled at the shores on top of his flying bison. The biggest shock was how young the avatar looked. He was just a child, even younger than his own children.

"Katara's in trouble," Aang spoke, and immediately, Sokka jumped into action. Before Hakoda even had time to process the words, Sokka had begun to spin possible plans while mounting the back of the beast.

"Sokka," Hakoda called out, just before the two boys could take off. "Take care of your sister."

Sokka nodded and Hakoda was left standing alone, watching the sky bison until it disappeared into the horizon. The man had steeled himself for another long wait until he would once again see his children, so it was to his surprise when just the next night, Katara and Sokka came seeking his help, with an unconscious Aang wrapped within his daughter's arms.

The next two weeks were tense as Katara kept constant vigil at the avatar's side. He had not had a chance to talk to his daughter yet, and he suspected that she was avoiding him, but Hakoda could not get over the fact of how much Katara looked just like her mother, Kya.

When Sokka and Katara first sought him out, begging for protection and help after their excursion with the Fire Nation at Ba Sing Se, Hakoda felt like he was swept back in time. She looked just as Kya did, all those years ago, when Hakoda was following the poor girl around like a lost puppy, looking for scraps. Only, when Hakoda examined Katara more closely, he could see minute differences, until they all added up, and Katara became a stranger, both unrecognizable from her mother, and as the little girl Hakoda remembered.

There was fierce determination set in her brow. Kya had always been relaxed, laughing and smiling at Hakoda's antics. He fondly recalled a time when he and Kya went penguin sledding, and when Hakoda crashed face-first into a snowdrift, Kya had giggled madly for the rest of the day whenever she looked in his direction. This new Katara looked as if there was no laughter left in her. As water swelled around her hands, and smoothed down Aang's back in practiced healing, there was a heavy air that seemed to permeate around her.

Kya was never sad. Her philosophy was that life was short, and that we should enjoy the time we are given. Now, Hakoda wonders if Kya knew her life would be extinguished so early. He missed Kya's smile and laughter so much, that Hakoda sometimes had trouble rising out of bed in the mornings. Right now, what he yearned for even more was just to see the same smile on Katara's face.

No matter how much he wished it wasn't true, Kya was never coming back. She had left him and their children alone to fend for themselves. For awhile, Hakoda was angry that she had left, as if she was partially to blame for the Fire Nation to kill her in cold blood. Regardless of the situation, she had left, but looking at his children now, as Sokka placed a comforting arm around his sister's shoulder after she finished her most recent healing session, hadn't he done the same thing?

Hakoda knew his and the mother men's departure to go off and help with the war effort was for the good of the tribe. He never doubted that, but seeing his children so in sync in a world he was no longer invited into, he wondered if in helping his tribe, he sacrificed his chance to be a father.

Night had fallen, and as Hakoda was doing a safety check on the deck, he saw his only son leaning on the railing of the ship, staring up at the nearly full moon. As he approached, it looked as if Sokka had been crying, but when he finally reached his side, his son's face was dry. Perhaps he was just imagining it.

"Hey Dad," Sokka whispered, breaking his gaze from the cosmic bodies. "I don't know if I have said this yet, but thanks. Thanks for taking Katara, Aang, and I in."

"It is what any father would do." The two continued to sit in silence, and while it wasn't uncomfortable, Hakoda felt the insatiable need to fill it. "How has Katara been doing?"

"Why are you asking me?" Sokka scrunched up his brown in a look of confusion that was eerily similar to the looks Hakoda's own mother used to throw him, Hakoda got a sense of déjà vu.

"Katara's been busy," Hakoda finally confirmed slowly, not wanting to invite Sokka into his own personal drama of paranoia that his daughter was evading him.

"She's ignoring you, huh?"

Hakoda panicked. "What? I never said-"

"I know," Sokka interrupted. "I just know Katara."

_Which is more than me_, Hakoda's mind unhelpfully supplied.

"Katara has been very angry and hurt for a long time. I think she has some trouble letting go of old emotion. Just give her time, and she'll come to you."

Hakoda raised an eyebrow at his son. "That was surprisingly insightful."

"Hey! I'm smart, too! Not just all about these babies," and as Sokka flexed his mostly nonexistent muscles, the moment was broken, and father and son were laughing together once again.

When Aang finally woke, Hakoda couldn't help but watch the interaction between the avatar and his daughter. The two of them moved around each other in a way that while was so graceful and beautiful, it did not invite anyone else in on their little dance. Even if the two of them were not talking, they would always find some reason to touch. A hand on the shoulder here, a tug on the hand there, and far more hugs than Hakoda was comfortable with.

When Hakoda tried to question Sokka about Katara's relationship with the avatar, the young boy got decidedly fidgety about the line of questioning, before slinking away with a thinly veiling excuse of "Appa is calling for me!" Hakoda knew the two of them were not dating, but he wasn't blind. He knew what all the glances and touches added up to, and the summation of that equation equaled to the avatar taking his little girl away from his grasp.

Though, if Hakoda thought about it, hadn't Aang already taken his daughter away? The avatar had been spending the last several months in his kids' presence non-stop, and now knew more about his kids than even he did. They had insider jokes, pointed looks, and secret signals that meant nothing to anyone else but the three of them. When Katara did finally smile again, it was for the avatar, and not her father.

What struck Hakoda about Katara's smile was that it was not as he remembered. Katara was the vision of his wife, and yet when that grin stretched across Katara's face, it was as if her imaged transformed, and Hakoda was looking into a mirror. Granted, a much younger, more feminine mirror, but Katara's smile as all him.

It was great to see his children again, and Hakoda finally felt whole for the first time in two years, but it was a bitter sweet reunion. While seeing his kids again was an extraordinary experience, he felt as if he no longer had the right. These were no longer the kids he remembered. They were virtual strangers, and if they didn't look so much like products of the Water Tribe, would he have been able to recognize them?

"Be careful," Hakoda wished his children on the day they were finally leaving him and the rest of his crew. Katara and Sokka ducked in for a quick hug as Aang hung around inconspicuously in the back.

"Don't worry about us, Dad, we can take care of ourselves," Sokka smiled gently.

"Well, some of us," Katara teased her brother, bringing an elbow into his side.

The two continued to bicker as they rode off on Appa, their faces already turned away from the Water Tribe and towards the unknown land in front of them. Hakoda knew they were right. The two of them could take care of themselves. They didn't need a father anymore. Hakoda wasn't even sure if he deserved the chance, but once this wretched war was over, Hakoda vowed that he would try to be the best father in the world to the two of them, even if that meant he couldn't be involved.


End file.
